AGI-ROME

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

America- The Land of the Free or Fearful?

By Colette Whitney

Before the AGI program I took some time to explore
Barcelona, Spain. During my stay in Spain I stayed at a hostel and was
accompanied by people from all around the world including Australia, Brazil,
Scotland, Germany, Canada, Israel, England, Argentina and Egypt. When I explained to them that the purpose of
my travel was to end up in Rome to take a class on the refugee crisis and
forced migration, I got multiple forms of praise and intriguing questions about
what I will be learning and doing. It was able to observe how every person had
something to say about the issue, the majority wanting to know how they can
help or how their countries have been helping. Not one person I talked to
sounded afraid or intimidated by the topic.

It is interesting to be in a area that accepts refugees with
open arms. Italy currently has almost 94,000refugees right behind Germany who is hosting over 250,000.
Then there is America, that is hosting over267,000.
Interesting, America is hosting almost the same amount of refugees as Germany,
and America is 20x larger. Shouldn’t America’s refugee numbers outshine
Germany’s? Why is it that America, one of the most powerful and influential
countries is having such a pushback from this global issue?

If you have been watching the news or have been engaged in
social media in the past couple of months, you will see that there has been
outrageous government debates for accepting and not accepting more refugees into the US. But why? Most
people will respond with a fear of a
potential terrorist attack, like what
happened in Paris on November 13th 2015. These refugees are coming from corrupt
countries and are therefore violent, right? The idea that these people are
escaping their countries to leave the violence behind and start a new life
completely goes out the window. A chartfrom the State Department, Migration and
Policy Institute shows that since 911 America has taken in 784,395 refugees and
only 3 have been arrested on terrorism charges. Eighty percentof the terrorist attacks since
911 have been from US citizens. So where is the real threat? Why is America so
stuck in fear?

The problem with today’s society in America is that people
will hear one bad story and it stays with them. The negative stories and facts
tend to be the ones that most people talk about and share, especially when they
are ignorant not educated on the topic at hand. So how do we change this? How
do we educate more people on what is going on in the world and help make a
positive impact? The more people understand the real issue of forced migration,
the better chances we have on improving it. Here are a few ideas to start out
with:

1.Don’t believe everything you see and read on social
media/facebook

2.Read credible resources and stay away from Fox News

3.Talk to others and spread/share information and ideas

4.Learn about other world views

This is what we, the AGI program will discuss
throughout the week a the AGI program. Stay tuned.